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MOBILE PENTIUM PROCESSOR WITH MMX™ TECHNOLOGY
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The Pentium processors have increased the data
2.1.
Mobile Pentium Processor
Family Architecture
bus to 64 bits to improve the data transfer rate.
Burst read and burst writeback cycles are
supported by the Pentium processors. In addition,
bus cycle pipelining has been added to allow two
bus cycles to be in progress simultaneously. The
Pentium processors' MMU contains optional
extensions to the architecture which allow 4-Kbyte
and 4-Mbyte page sizes.
The application instruction set of the mobile
Pentium processor family includes the complete
Intel486 CPU family instruction set with extensions
to accommodate some of the additional
functionality of the Pentium processors. All
application software written for the Intel386 and
Intel486 family microprocessors will run on the
Pentium processors without modification. The on-
chip memory management unit (MMU) is
completely compatible with the Intel386 and
Intel486 families of processors.
The Pentium processors have added significant
data integrity and error detection capability. Data
parity checking is still supported on a byte-by-byte
basis. Address parity checking and internal parity
checking features have been added along with a
new exception, the machine check exception.
The Pentium processors implement several
enhancements to increase performance. The two
instruction pipelines and floating-point unit on
Pentium processors are capable of independent
operation. Each pipeline issues frequently used
instructions in a single clock. Together, the dual
pipes can issue two integer instructions in one
clock, or one floating-point instruction (under
As more and more functions are integrated on
chip, the complexity of board level testing is
increased. To address this, the Pentium
processors have increased test and debug
capability. The Pentium processors implement
IEEE Boundary Scan (Standard 1149.1). In
addition, the Pentium processors have specified
four breakpoint pins that correspond to each of the
certain
instructions) in one clock.
circumstances,
two
floating-point
debug registers and externally indicate
a
breakpoint match. Execution tracing provides
external indications when an instruction has
completed execution in either of the two internal
pipelines, or when a branch has been taken.
Branch prediction is implemented in the Pentium
processors. To support this, Pentium processors
implement two prefetch buffers, one to prefetch
code in a linear fashion, and one that prefetches
code according to the Branch Target Buffer (BTB)
so the needed code is almost always prefetched
before it is needed for execution.
System Management Mode (SMM) has been
implemented along with some extensions to the
SMM architecture. Enhancements to the virtual
8086 mode have been made to increase
performance by reducing the number of times it is
necessary to trap to a vir tual 8086 monitor.
The floating-point unit has been completely
redesigned over the Intel486 processor. Faster
algorithms provide up to 10X speed-up for
common operations including add, multiply and
load.
Figure 1 shows a block diagram of the mobile
Pentium processor with MMX technology.
Pentium processors include separate code and
data caches integrated on-chip to meet
performance goals. Each cache has a 32-byte line
size and is 4-way set associative. Each cache has
a dedicated Translation Lookaside Buffer (TLB) to
translate linear addresses to physical addresses.
The data cache is configurable to be writeback or
writethrough on a line-by-line basis and follows the
MESI protocol. The data cache tags are triple
ported to support two data transfers and an inquire
cycle in the same clock. The code cache is an
inherently write-protected cache. The code cache
tags are also triple ported to support snooping and
split line accesses. Individual pages can be
configured as cacheable or non-cacheable by
software or hardware. The caches can be enabled
or disabled by software or hardware.
The block diagram shows the two instruction
pipelines, the "u" pipe and "v" pipe. The u-pipe can
execute all integer and floating-point instructions.
The v-pipe can execute simple integer instructions
and the FXCH floating-point instructions.
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INTEL [ INTEL ]
